


have no fear

by badritual



Series: Yuletide [6]
Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Injury, Injury Recovery, Kissing, Post-Canon, Resolved Romantic Tension, Yuletide, Yuletide 2020, mild pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28141146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badritual/pseuds/badritual
Summary: The one thought that runs through Ginny’s mind as the ball rolls off her fingertips—and something vitally important in her elbow fuckingsnaps—is “Ahern is dead.” Every fucking time she faces the Dodgers from here on out, she’s going to drill Ahern until he’s nothing but a giant walking bruise. And if Ahern and the Dodgers eventually part ways, she’ll haunt his ass until he’s old and gray, living out his final days in a nursing home. She’ll shuffle up to him during bingo night, or what-the-fuck-ever, and bust him up and in with high heat.Who the fuck bunts during a no-hitter?
Relationships: Ginny Baker/Mike Lawson
Series: Yuletide [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082288
Comments: 10
Kudos: 62
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	have no fear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cuits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuits/gifts).



> Written for Cuits for Yuletide 2020! Hope you enjoy this!
> 
> Title pulled from the _Pitch_ theme song. 
> 
> Additional Notes/Warnings: Mention of Amelia. Elbow injury and aftermath.

The one thought that runs through Ginny’s mind as the ball rolls off her fingertips—and something vitally important in her elbow fucking _snaps_ —is “Ahern is dead.” Every fucking time she faces the Dodgers from here on out, she’s going to drill Ahern until he’s nothing but a giant walking bruise. And if Ahern and the Dodgers eventually part ways, she’ll haunt his ass until he’s old and gray, living out his final days in a nursing home. She’ll shuffle up to him during bingo night, or what-the-fuck-ever, and bust him up and in with high heat. 

Who the fuck bunts during a no-hitter?

Then the pain hits and Ginny drops to the grass, clutches at it desperately and pulls it up in clumps. 

_God_ , she thinks, as she twists up clods of sod, _Russell is going to kill me._

The pain’s like nothing she’s ever felt before. Searing, all-consuming. There are comforting hands on her back—and a concerned murmur in her ear drowning out the reassuring chorus of “Uptown Funk”—but she hardly notices them. 

All she notices is the pain.

And _that’s_ when the nausea hits, leaves her shaking under the force of it, the tips of her fingers tingling. _Adrenaline_ , she realizes. A surge of adrenaline coursing through her, her body’s last ditch attempt to whisk away the pain. 

It’s going to be a bitch, this injury. She’s had elbow injuries before—got some bone chips taken care of a few years back when she was toiling in San Antonio, had arthroscopic surgery on her knee a couple years before that—but this one is _bad_. Every single pitcher knows what it means to hear their precious elbow make a noise no body should be making. 

Months of rehab flash before Ginny’s eyes in the handful of seconds it takes for the team trainer to skid to his knees next to her in the grass. She glances at her offending elbow and can practically see the L-shaped scar rise up from her skin like a shiny badge. Some guys bounce right back after the requisite rehab period. But some guys _never_ make it back.

Ginny’s never been just _some guy_ , though. So, maybe she’ll be lucky. Maybe the Baseball Gods will be looking out for her even if they’d apparently glanced away long enough for a fucking bunt to ruin her no-hitter _and_ bring her rookie season to a stumbling halt.

Ginny feels herself being lifted to her feet, strong arms buffeting her, lifting her up and up and up. She realizes that she’s woozy with the pain now, that she’s slipped into some sort of brain fog. But she can walk and so she walks off the field to muted applause and muffled cheers, her teammates’ concerned murmurs at her back.

 _It’s not fair_ , she thinks, as she stomps down the concrete dugout steps. _It’s not fair. It’s never been fair._

This game, it’s always taken and taken and taken from her. It’s about time it gave something back.

* * *

It’s not a total tear, they tell her with grins on their faces that she wishes she could slap off. 

_Not a total tear_ , like that’s supposed to make her feel any better about this. Like that’s supposed to help. 

“You won’t need Tommy John, is the point,” Amelia tells her.

Ginny presses her phone tightly against her ear; she thinks she can hear tinkly music in the background. Drums and chimes, maybe. “Where are you?” she asks. “A beach?”

Amelia huffs. “Some swanky resort,” she mutters. “Overpriced food, overpriced wine. Wish I was in the bleachers with a sack of peanuts.”

Ginny glances hatefully at her securely wrapped elbow and tugs lightly at the bandages holding all her partially-torn ligaments in place. “They think I can rehab it better,” she admits wondering, not for the first time, why she’s telling Amelia all of this. It’s not like Amelia’s her representative anymore. 

Actually, she probably _shouldn’t_ be telling Amelia any of this, if she’s being honest with herself. Now that Ginny’s got herself a new agent and hired Eliot as her PR guy. No reason to still keep Amelia in the loop. 

Maybe she thinks of Amelia as a friend. Then she wonders if that ship has long sailed away. 

No matter. Ginny coughs to break up the staticky silence that’s settled between them. 

“So,” Amelia says. “How’s the new agent working out? Burrell, I think?”

“Buford,” Ginny corrects. “It’s been fine.”

“And Eliot?” Amelia asks. “You haven’t been giving him too hard a time, have you?”

“It’s been fine, _Mom_ ,” Ginny barks, sarcasm tightening through the words like the laces of a well-used baseball mitt. “Enjoy your vacation. Maybe when you get back we can go out for drinks or something.”

“Yeah,” Amelia says, quiet now. The drums and chimes have faded away, and Ginny thinks she can hear the crash of the ocean against the surf in the background. “I'd like that.”

After they say their hasty goodbyes, Ginny drops her phone in her lap and stares blankly at the widescreen television set opposite her. News of her injury scrolls across the screen at the very bottom, twisting in her gut and settling uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach.

Ginny snatches up the remote and shuts the TV off. 

Enough wallowing. 

She rubs absently at her elbow. “What am I gonna do now?”

Unsurprisingly, the empty living room doesn’t offer up any answers.

* * *

It turns out there isn’t much to do when you can’t really _do_ anything. She hasn’t even been cleared to start her rehab regimen; they want her to wait a few weeks, take it easy or something. 

But she needs to do _something_ or she’s going to start thinking. She’s going to start thinking about all the time she might miss because of this stupid elbow injury—Masahiro Tanaka pitches just fine with a wonky elbow, she tries to remind herself—or she’ll start thinking about that _other_ thing. 

The almost thing. The almost thing she isn’t going to think about. 

The almost Mike thing.

And now she’s thinking about it. 

Better the almost Mike thing, she allows with weary resignation, than the fact her fledgling fucking career hangs on a partially shredded UCL. 

Mike had almost kissed her. She’d almost kissed him. 

She replays the memory of that not-a-kiss on a loop in her mind, like a reel of film stuck in a projector. She remembers leaning in closer to him, feeling his warm, alcohol-tinged breath skitter over her bottom lip. She remembers dropping her eyes to his shoes. To the space between their feet, oddly. She’d thought that his shoes were kind of ratty, that he should get a newer pair and that maybe she’d take him shopping some day. Maybe she’d use some of her per diem to buy him a nicer pair of shoes to go with his fancy roadtrip suits.

And then his cell phone had begun rattling in his pocket. And then he’d answered the call and it was if a metal grate—like the kind they have at the stadium to keep the throngs of fans at bay, before they open up the ticket tills—had slid down in front of his eyes. 

They’d stepped back, away, dropped their hands and their eyes. 

The tension hadn’t gone away—would it have gone away even if they’d kissed?—but Ginny had begun to warm up to the idea of just… God, she doesn’t even know. Learning to live with it? Learning to accept that the feelings—confusing though they were—were there, and they just wouldn’t ever be able to do anything about them? 

Now, this had been thrown in her lap too. Along with the sting of the lost no-hitter. 

The crunchy opening riff of the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” startles her out of her wallowing. 

Ginny grabs up the phone and lifts it to her ear. She injects some cheer into her voice. “Hey, Mike.”

“Hey, Baker,” Mike says, casually. Too casual. She realizes he’d probably spent the last five, ten minutes working himself up to actually making the phone call. “How you doing?”

“Better than expected, I guess,” she says, leaning her head back until it collides with the couch cushions. “Don’t need Tommy John, so there’s that.”

“Good. Would hate to lose ya for the whole year,” Mike says, his usually gruff voice going a little too soft and earnest. 

Ginny isn’t sure what to do with how damn _soft_ he sounds right now, so she simply does nothing with it. “Me too,” she says. “I’d lose my mind if I had to sit out a whole year.”

“But—” Mike starts, before abruptly cutting himself short.

“No, what?” Ginny presses.

“I know you’d been feeling kind of…” Here he pauses again, then forges on before he can lose his nerve. “Kind of trapped. I guess. Like, not entirely sure this was what you’d wanted for yourself.”

Ginny sighs, nods to herself, remembering the uncomfortable, squirmy conversation she’d had with Mike after her meltdown and the confrontation in Oscar’s office over it. “Yeah, I… I made my choice though,” she says. “I choose baseball. It’s all I know how to do. All I’m good at.”

“Not exactly a rousing thought, though,” Mike muses, sounding thoughtful. 

“I guess not,” Ginny agrees. “But it’s what I’ve worked my whole life for. If I gave up now…even after this fucking elbow thing, I’d be letting everyone down. Including myself.”

“Even if you had other dreams?” Mike asks.

“Even then,” she sighs, closing her eyes, imagining herself somewhere else. Maybe on Amelia’s beach with a mojito in hand. And Channing Tatum nearby in some tight shorts. Somehow, this helps her ignore the ever present throb in her damaged elbow. “I know what I am. I’m a ballplayer. I don’t always love the game. The game _clearly_ doesn’t love me. But I just can’t help it. I can’t stop loving it just because it doesn’t always love me back.”

Mike huffs out a laugh. “Glad you learned that now, kid. Took me a wonky knee that aches every time it rains, two divorces, and innumerable postseason disappointments.”

“Was gonna have to happen sooner or later,” Ginny says, forcing her eyes open. She glances up at the ceiling and traces the whipped cream swirls. “I dunno. It kind of sucks, you know?”

“What does?” Mike asks.

“The injury, the fact we’re back in the postseason race and I won’t be there. How I’m gonna have to live with this stupid fucking elbow tear for the rest of my life, probably,” Ginny bites out. “The doctor said that, you know. That it was just something I’d likely have to deal with for the rest of my life. It won’t go away without surgery, but I can pitch without the surgery. So I’m not getting the surgery. Got a lifetime of elbow braces, ice baths, and pain killers to look forward to.”

“I’m sorry, kid,” Mike says, his voice gone soft around the edges again. “I wanted better for you.”

“I know,” she says. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Mike says.

Ginny laughs, the sound dry, brittle. “I know,” she echoes. “But it happens. Hey, if Tanaka can do it.”

“There’s that fighting spirit,” Mike teases.

Somehow, talking this all out with Mike has unknotted something inside Ginny she hadn’t even realized was there. A strange tension slowly bleeds out of her, into the couch cushions, and she feels lighter than she has since before the injury. 

“Thanks,” she says. “For talking with me.”

“Of course,” Mike says. “Anytime. Mean it.”

“Anytime?” Ginny asks, with a laugh. 

He laughs, the sound rich and warm in her ears. Healing, almost. “Anytime.”

* * *

The phone calls become their routine. Mike calls her up every morning at eight on the dot, quizzes her about the stuff she’s putting her body, asks after her mom and step-dad, even Will and sometimes Amelia too. (Ginny tries not to get her back up _too_ much about the Amelia thing, but it still bothers her. It still bothers her that they’d kept it a secret from her for so long. It still bothers her that part of her feels like she can’t completely trust Amelia, even though Amelia had been her friend once.)

“I should come out and visit,” Ginny announces during one of these early morning pep talks.

“Yeah?” Mike asks, sounding both keenly interested _and_ like he isn’t trying to sound interested at all. 

“Yeah,” Ginny says. “I’ve been holed up in my childhood bedroom for way too long. I’m going stir-crazy.”

“Say hello to your life-size Mike Lawson cut out for me,” he teases her.

“Fuck off,” Ginny snaps. 

“Come back to San Diego and say that to my face,” Mike challenges. 

Ginny rolls her eyes to the ceiling. The Mike Lawson life-size cut out mercifully keeps its opinions to itself. “Maybe I will.”

“We all miss you,” he says, then adds, “how’s the elbow?”

“Better,” Ginny says. “Started rehabbing. I’m supposed to go to Arizona in January, actually. To work more closely with the trainers and medical staff.”

“Yeah? I’m gonna be up there in January too,” Mike says, still doing that funny too-interested-not-interested-at-all thing. 

“Let’s make it a date then,” Ginny says, affecting an air of flippancy she decidedly _does not_ feel. 

“Yeah. But first things first,” Mike says. “Get your perky butt out to San Diego to cheer on your boys as they try to lock up a wild card spot.”

“Yessir,” Ginny says, saluting the cut out. 

Mike chuckles warmly, sounding fond. “That’s what I thought.”

* * *

Ginny shows up in San Diego the following weekend, dragging a duffel bag behind her like a little lost puppy or something. Mike’s supposed to be waiting in the baggage carousel but he isn’t there, and her texts keep going unread. 

_He must be lost in traffic_ , she thinks, as she finds an empty bench to plop herself down on. _Maybe he forgot he was supposed to pick me up._

Ginny pulls her phone back out of her jacket pocket and checks. Mike’s left her on read, apparently. 

_Maybe Rachel decided she wanted him back_ , Ginny thinks, before chastising herself silently. That was a little mean. It wasn’t as if Mike ran back to his ex anytime she snapped her fingers. It was just that one time, as far as Ginny knows. 

She tucks her phone back in her pocket and stands up, anxiously tugging at the brace currently encasing her bad elbow. 

Everything suddenly goes dark as two big, callused hands clap down over her eyes. Ginny sucks a startled yelp back just in time and spins, finding herself face-to-face with a smug, delighted Mike Lawson.

“Lawson, you dick.” Ginny pushes him in the chest with her left hand, letting her right arm dangle uselessly by her side. “You scared the bejesus out of me.”

“That was the plan,” Mike says, breaking into a wide grin. His beard’s out of control, a bird’s nest of wiry brown hair, and Ginny reaches out, tugging lightly on it. “Growing it out. Gonna donate it.”

Ginny rolls her eyes and lets go of his beard. “Dork. Where to?” She stoops down to pick up her bag but Mike is already on it, slinging the back over his shoulder with ease. 

Ginny can’t help the tiny roil of jealousy that tumbles in her stomach. Nor the shivery spark of desire that ripples deep within her at the flex of his back muscles under the thin, careworn cotton of his T-shirt. 

“I’m parked out front,” he says. “Should step on the gas before I get a ticket or my truck gets hauled off.”

Laughing, Ginny follows Mike to his pickup. He tosses her bag in the back and opens the passenger side door for her, holding out a hand to her so she can step up and slide into the cab. 

“So chivalrous,” Ginny teases him.

“Anything for the queen,” Mike replies, dryly.

Ginny buckles herself in—or, at least, she tries to. She hadn’t thought about how hard it would be for her to reach across her body with her non-dominant hand to grab for the seatbelt. 

“Here,” Mike says, leaning in close, close enough that she can smell the crisp, fresh scent of his shampoo. “Let me.”

Mike grabs the buckle and snaps it in place, fingers lingering for a moment too long at her hip before he pulls back. Ginny glances over at him but he isn’t meeting her gaze, so she turns her head and looks out the window instead.

“Thanks,” she says. “Still haven’t gotten use to this.”

Mike pats his bad knee, the one that blew out on him a few years back, that still bothers him when it rains. “Likewise.”

“Still?” Ginny asks.

“Always,” he says. 

Ginny glances down at her elbow and wonders. She thinks about Tanaka, Strasburg, Darvish, Verlander, all the stars who blew out their elbows at one point or another and still made it back. She thinks about all the nameless nobodies whose careers never even took flight because they couldn’t make it back from the abyss. 

“You’ll be fine,” Mike pipes up as he pulls out of the parking spot and away from the curb. “We’ve got only the highest quality medical professionals on staff. And the best team doctor. You’ll be _fine_.”

Ginny wants to say she believes him, and she thinks she does. But when has baseball ever cared about medical professionals and trainers and doctors? When has baseball ever cared enough to be _fair_?

* * *

Mike’s place is surprisingly sleek and modern. Ginny had been expecting something more—more homey, she supposes. The kind of place you could raise a family in, if she’s being honest with herself. It seems like Mike had wanted that with Rachel, at one point. Maybe he’d even wanted that sort of thing with Amelia, before they’d split up.

She forces thoughts of chubby, pink-cheeked babies out of her mind as she wanders down the hallway of Mike’s sleek, modern house and admires the framed photographs lining the walls. There are pictures of Mike and his mom, Mike with teammates and dignitaries. Even some fuzzy pictures of Mike’s father, like they’d been taken from a distance. 

There’s even one of Ginny and Mike, from her first start. She pauses in front of the framed picture and studies it, wonders why Mike had never told her about it. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles from down the hall. “I’m an old sentimental softy. Laugh it up.”

“I’m not laughing,” Ginny says, turning, baring a smile at him. “It’s sweet.”

Mike rolls his eyes at her, sidling past her and pausing in front of a closed bedroom door. He pushes it open and gestures into the room. “Guest room,” he says, a little pointlessly. 

Ginny peers in. The room is done up in airy pastels and there are silk wallhangings, a crystal chandelier with dangly bits, soft rugs that you could really sink your toes into. It occurs to Ginny, as she toes off her boots and steps into the room to dig her toes into the carpet, that Rachel had probably designed this room. There are no baseball pictures on the walls, nor any memorabilia on the dresser or the little desk by the curtained picture window. 

“It’s pretty,” Ginny says, gazing around her. Her eyes fall on the big four-poster bed in the center of the room, with its downy comforter and its diaphanous canopy. 

It looks like a dream. 

“So,” Mike says. “Uh.”

She turns and glances at him, realizing all at once that he’s nervous. 

“It’s nice. Thanks,” she says, meandering closer and sliding the strap of her bag off his shoulder. 

“You hungry? Thirsty?” Mike asks. “I’ve got beers chilling in a cooler on the porch. We could drink. Watch the sun set.”

“Sounds nice, actually,” Ginny says. 

Mike reaches out, snagging her wrist in his hand, tugging her toward the door playfully. She ducks her chin down and smiles, savoring the feel of his rough-hewn fingers and the way they clasp her wrist so easily. Like a bracelet she just slipped on. Like they fit her perfectly.

* * *

They sit out on the porch and watch the sun sink down below the tree line in Mike’s back yard. The weather is warm and pleasant still, and Ginny hasn’t felt this _peaceful_ in weeks. Sure, she’d liked spending time with her mom and Kevin, but this was different. This was turning your mind off for a little while and just enjoying the company. Just enjoying a sunset.

When was the last time Ginny had been able to just kick back, watch the sun sink down below the horizon, and just _be_? No injured elbow, no no-hitter, no agent, no baseball, no nothing. 

She turns her head and catches Mike’s eyes with her own. He doesn’t look away like he usually does when she notices him watching her. He holds her gaze intently, yet softly, the way she holds a baseball and carefully lines her fingers along the seams. 

“What’s on your mind?” Mike asks, setting aside his empty bottle. The bottle tips over and rolls on its side, beer sloshing slickly across the wood of the deck. Mike pays it no mind.

“Nothing,” Ginny answers truthfully. “I’m not thinking about anything. And it’s great.”

Mike smiles, a slight twitch of his beard. “Good.”

Ginny tears her eyes away from him and directs them at the sky, and the canopy of stars spread overhead, twinkling like Christmas lights. “First time in months I’ve been able to just clear my mind.”

Mike hums tunelessly. “Glad to hear it.”

“Mike?”

“Yeah,” he asks. He sounds distant, but not in a bad way. Thoughtful. 

“Do you ever think about it?” she asks. 

“It?”

“The kiss,” Ginny says. “The almost-kiss.”

Mike sighs like he knew this was coming, it was only a matter of time before liquid courage unstuck Ginny’s tongue from the roof of her mouth. “Yeah,” he admits. “All the time.”

“Me too,” she says, still looking at the stars. Still not looking at him. “Sometimes I wish you hadn’t picked up the call.”

“I wish that too, sometimes,” he says. “I’m glad I did.”

“Why?” Ginny asks, and she does look at him now. 

“I might’ve done something stupid,” he admits.

“Like what? Actually kiss me for real?” Ginny asks, her tone a little sharper than she means for it to be.

“More than that,” Mike says, cutting his gaze away. “I wasn’t in the right frame of mind, Ginny. I—I was still hung up on Rachel. And I’d just broken things off with Amelia…”

“Are you saying you only almost kissed me because you were hung up on other women?” Ginny asks, glaring up at the stars.

“No! No,” he says. “I just—I mean, I was a mess. I still kind of am. I really loved Rachel. Really wanted it to work and it blew up in my face. Not because she was a horrible person. Not because I was an asshole to her. Just because I loved my job too much. And she got tired of being jerked around. I hurt her without trying to. Without meaning to.”

“I know that,” Ginny says, gentling her tone. “I wouldn’t be going in blind.”

She wonders what they’re talking about now. Wonders if they’re on the same page. 

“I know,” Mike says. “But Amelia… You were friends. And I don’t want to come between you.”

“You won’t,” Ginny says, with a sigh. “I think Amelia and I… I think our friendship’s run its course.”

Mike is silent for a little while, maybe digesting all of this. Or maybe trying to think of a way to let her down kindly. Finally, he says, “I really like you.”

“I really like you too, Mike,” Ginny responds.

“And that’s why I don’t want to—I don’t want to mess _this_ up,” he says, and she can see him gesturing between them, his movements highlighted under the faint twilight glow. “There are so many reasons why we shouldn’t.”

“I’ve got one good reason we should,” Ginny says, getting out of her deck chair and crawling over to Mike’s. She plops down beside him and rests her cheek on the armrest. 

Ginny can feel his heat against her, and smell the faint tang of beer on his breath. His hand find her hair and he shifts his fingers through her curls slowly, nails scratching gently against her scalp.

“Why’s that?” he asks, his hand stilling. 

“We want to,” Ginny says. 

Mike sighs. His fingers resume moving against her scalp. “We’d have to keep it on the D.L.”

“I know,” Ginny says. 

“People will talk,” he says. 

“I know,” she repeats, through her teeth. She relaxes her clenched jaw. “I’m not gonna pass up the chance at something good coming out of all this just because people might _talk_.”

“Okay,” Mike says. “Just so you know where I stand.” 

“Likewise.” Ginny surges up onto her knees and leans in, her lips finding Mike’s bristly cheek in the dark. 

He turns his head then, slotting his mouth against hers in a light, almost reverent kiss. The culmination of the almost-kiss all those weeks ago. His fingers slip out of her hair to cup the back of her neck, gently, so gently.

Ginny lifts her good arm, pressing her palm against the center of Mike’s chest. He’s warm through his T-shirt, and she can feel his heartbeat faintly under her palm. 

When they part, his breath gusts against her swollen lips. 

“How’s that for a first kiss,” Mike teases her.

“Pretty damn good,” Ginny says. “You done overthinking things?”

“Ready to just ride the wave. See where it goes,” Mike agrees, his laughter a low rumble against Ginny’s hand. 

Then he leans in and seizes her mouth with his own. Ginny melds into it, into him, not caring that the wood is hard and unforgiving under her knees. Not caring that her stupid right arm still hangs uselessly and limply at her side. 

The only thing that matters is Mike’s mouth against hers, his tongue sliding against her own. 

The only thing that matters is this.


End file.
